Category: Work in Progress

Here is a piece of the Military history that I having been working on.

In the late 22nd century, the Republic of Man had built their first space fleet. These consisted of large tubular vessels that used the Jrings to provide artificial gravity and shields. They used fusion reactors to move around and could not venture beyond mars without resupply. Quarters were fairly cramped and the lifestyle was not so jokingly compared to the days of wooden ships and iron men, during the 17-18th centuries.

Armed with rail guns and missiles, these early ships were designed to combat the last remaining holdout nations who were putting space stations into orbit with primitive shuttles that were armed with missiles. Of the most advance, the Republic of Texas and Florida and the Nordic Federation, they had built larger vessels that could make it out to the asteroid belt and set up a few mining colonies. These last holdouts traded and feared the Republic but could not do anything to counter their more advanced systems.

In the last days of the Republic of Texas and Florida, Prime Minister Tolbon of the Republic of Man offered the Republic of Texas and Florida a chance to surrender. A major engagment in the Gulf of Mexico had destroyed most of the small republics military forces on Earth. The small republic had armed up a few of their freighters and frigates and sent them out to raid the Republic of Man’s space stations. The Republic’s 1st and 2nd squadrons (5 ships each) went after these privateers while the 3rd squadron destroyed all space borne assets of the small republic.

The Battle of Vesta was the first space fleet engagement in human history with the Republic of Man’s 3rd squadron taking on the remnants of the privateers that the Republic of Texas and Florida had created. The battle took place two weeks after the surrender of the Republic on Earth because the space rebels would not surrender. With all of their bases destroyed by the Republic of Man’s 1st and 2nd squadrons and those two squadrons closing in on the 12 remaining vessels of the privateer force, the 3rd squadron surprised the enemy at Vesta.

The RMS Moscow, one of the newest of the fleet’s vessels, was armed with an experimental ring fed rail gun. The rail gun sat on Earth and was capable of firing 6 rounds a minute vice the current ship board system that could only fire 2 rounds a minute. The Republic’s plan was to let the RMS Moscow fire on the enemy from a greater distance than normal and see what happens. The other major point of the ring weapon is that it did not run out of ammo like a shipboard system would.

As the opposing forces closed the RMS Moscow started firing in a random fashion at the enemy just filling the space between them with kinetic rounds. After a short time, the rest of the 3rd squadron started to fire to add their rounds to the storm bearing down on the enemy. The privateer force tried to move out of the way of the incoming rounds but the rounds would not stop and kept tracking the enemy force. Eventually the privateers were getting hit or crashed into each other and then were hit. The entire privateer force was destroyed without getting a chance to return fire as they were out of alignment with the Republic’s force for their rail guns and missiles.

The first space based battle was also the first battle in which ring weapons were used. They immediately showed their value and thus began humanities use of its most important capability. Over the next 100 years would see the continued concentration of power into fighting vessels and the emergence of bigger and more powerful ring weapons.

Like this:

A discussion on how worm holes are used in my universe. While many Sci-Fi writers use faster than light (FTL) type technologies, I have decided make that fairly unobtainable to humanity. In this way, MAN, has to take the slow route of ships traveling to other stars but once they arrive they drop off a worm hole ring that can then provide instantaneous travel between the linked worm holes. I hope you like it.

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Scientists discovers how to make mini black holes. In time, they learn how to create wormholes based on the knowledge they gained from quantum entanglement and black hole generation. They need a lot of power to create this connection and use solar collector stations to get the required power. What they create we call PT Rings or Poltan Transfer Rings, named after Daniel Poltan that discovered them.

In the early days of the Republic of Man, wormholes were sparsely used and their usage was severely controlled. In the imperial age, wormholes were used everywhere. It could be said that wormholes or ‘rings’ were as pervasive as nanites.

Rules of PT Rings:

PT Rings can not travel through each other.

PT Ring thresholds block all types of non physical wavelengths unless passing through a physical conduit (need to pass a cable through the hole to pass power or communications). A laser can not be fired from one side to another.. unless it has a physical “barrel” that extends through the horizon.

PT Rings are bi-directional as long as the same square inch is not trying to pass something from both sides..

Rings are so pervasive that it is said most citizens of the Solarian Empire have passed through a ring at least once in their life by the age of 5. Most cities in the core of the Empire and Federation have large Ring Hubs that interconnect the city to locations around the galaxy. With the advent of zones, due to the Rage plague of 3097, control over connectivity between zones was strictly enforced.

Rings are used to pass communications, people, ships and cargo. For communications, fiber or wired connections are used with one terminus of a link on each side of the Ring. Every city in the Empire was linked together with only some of the Frontier systems connected by a manual gateway function. This was mostly due to security rather than technological reasons.

Private company and personal rings were still allowed but they have to be approved by the government and installed by the Guild. They were also monitored and controlled by the guild at the behest of the government. The reasons go back again to the Rage plague that threatened the Federation. Then, over one billion sentient beings were killed, infected or left for dead. 15 habitable worlds were quarantined and will never be traveled to again. Each of these worlds have large numbers of automated defense systems that will warn then shoot anything trying to leave the surface or go to the surface. Most of those worlds were infected because of private ring connections.

The Solarian Empire is especially dependent on the ring network. While the Union started to return back to a more system centric lifestyle and other members of the Federation never took to the flexibility of the Rings the way that MAN did, the Empire took the amount of ring usage to the next level. Building dependencies on Ring connections for almost everything. From redundant power supplies coming from different parts of the Empire, to food production systems being located in systems light years from habitable worlds or the military arming many of their ships with almost exclusive Ring weapons.

It is said that most races can live without the Ring network just isolated from its different systems. The Empire could not exist without the Ring network. Billions would starve or have no power without the rings. On the other hand, no enemy can reduce an Imperial System through a siege or the defenders running out of power, arms or people. Imperial Systems are considered near impregnable because of this interconnectedness they have built.

The Empire has sprinkled its bases, stations and services over so many systems, it is considered impossible to defeat them. At almost every system they own, the Empire builds Rings that are then shipped to other parts of the Empire to further integrate their network of connections. Only the Frontier worlds are not as connected because of their remoteness. Even these systems have 40-100 connections after the first 20 years of colonization. Everything from spaceborne transportation, communications, planet side transportation to military Ring Weapons, communications and gateways.

The military is said to have rings in the outer Oort could of all systems in the Empire in case the system is attacked. These rings are nearly impossible to detect because they are unmanned stations with minimal power used to just keep the wormhole open and the systems operational. These stations have many more rings shrunk down to a meter size that is used by ring weapons. If ships need to go through the ring, they come thru and then load up ring weapons then proceed into the system.

As the Empire grows larger and larger and with the meeting of the ZAN in 3149, scientists realized that worm holes required more power the farther they go. When the Empire built the Zanium powered ship the ARK and sent it 50,000 light years across the galaxy, they sent rings with it. Luckily the Ring and Explorer guilds expected an increase in power to keep the wormholes open and made sure the links had extra capacity. It was not enough for all the rings. Of the 5000 rings (for ring weapons and transport) sent with the ARK on her jump, 2000 winked out of existence on rematerializing in normal space.

Noting this, the Empire dedicated small red dwarf systems to just powering these rings. Ten systems were selected around the Empire to be power systems of these far away ring connections. While normal power stations had 1000 sq miles of collectors. These new systems would interconnect and cover approximately 10 million sq miles of surface area around these stars. Normally that might be an impact to the systems life but these stars were picked for their lack of life.

An interesting article discussing that there could be a rule of thumb about planets being double the distance from their neighbors. So the distance between Earth and Venus is double the distance that Mercury and Venus is and so on. Apparently there is still a lot of debate, on whether that is a fact or just a coincidence. Either way, I can use in my Worm Hole Earth universe.

I would probably use it in stories that need to have ships travel between planets, in-system. Also when the Explorer Guilds are nearing a new system and see larger planets further out. They would then use this rule of thumb to consider smaller bodies closer in and then guestimate their locations in the system.

Like this:

So, one of the characters I wish to write about in a future book would be Lena. Tilor’s girlfriend that he can not wed because he is an Atlantean noble and she a commoner. Sounds familiar, right? Well, in a way it is, but she gets her own adventure. Here is part of the outline I was thinking for her story.

– Opens as Lena is with Tilor at the Atlantis Airport saying goodbye to Tilor as he gets ready to go back to duty in Sundaland (start of Wall of Destruction – WoD).

– See her life in Atlantis, 3 days later, as she learns of the strikes on Rama. How the folks of Atlantis are excited and think the war will be over soon. The city is euphoric and Lena believes Tilor will be back soon. She is worried because she has not heard from him yet.

– Day 4, going to work Lena hears of the counter strikes of Rama using their WMDs. How they destroy Sundaland’s colony and base and Lena is worried about Tilor. She has not heard from him for the last two days and is fearful that something happened to him.

– Day 5, Tilor walks into Lena’s bar to surprise her. He tells her of what is going on and how the destruction of Sundaland’s colony was. He spends the day with her.

– Day 6, Tilor leaves to visit Risor. He has completed his trial and is returning home and wants to say good bye.. Rama attempts a strike on Atlantis and Lena sees the same attack that Risor and Tilor do in WoD..Afterwards, Lena and Tilor meet up and Tilor talks about her getting out of Atlantis. She agrees as the strike early that day unsettled her, even if not successful.

– Day 9, Tilor gets them passage on a boat bound for Africa. They plan to travel half way to Luxa (Egypt) and for her to stay in a small town along the coast. They will look for a house that she can stay in until the war calms down. Tilor doesn’t want her near any large city as they would be targets.

– Day 12, They near the town that Tilor found and then shop for a house to rent. They find a home owned by a widow and her children. The family makes baskets and Lena can help them to make baskets. Tilor pays for 6 months up front and gives Lena more money. They say their good byes as Tilor wishes to also go home to visit his parents in the Caribbean.

– Two weeks later, Lena is happy with Kala and her 2 children. She dreams of finally marrying Tilor and having children even though she knows that would be difficult. Tilor was a noble and Lena was just a common citizen. Plus Tilor was fearful of what his father would say. Then the peaceful calm she was enjoying was shattered as an alert of a tsunami coming towards the town causes all to run further inland to the hills. Luckily only the docks were destroyed as the town was up a slight rise and the tsunami was more a very high tide at this point. They count themselves lucky but then find out that Atlantis was devastated.

– One week later. The town had plenty of food and Lena was safe with Kala but she was very worried about Tilor and of course Atlantis itself. The city was said to be abandoned and most of the garrison of their town was sent to fight Rama. There were rumors that the Greeks were striking during this time of disaster. Rumors said they were striking along the African coast and other Atlantean colonies along the Med.

– 3 days later. Lena, Kala and the kids are woken to the sound of alarm and cries of war and pain. Lena goes out the door and sees that the town is under attack by the Greeks. With most of the garrison gone, the fight is short and desperate for the defenders as they try to buy the civilians time to escape into the surrounding hills and savannah.

– They are captured almost to the hills. the Greeks take them on their boat and take them back to their city across the Med in Sicily. There Lena, Kala and the kids are used as slaves. They are luckily not raped as Lena learns the Greeks are asking for a ransom for the hostages they have taken. Lean and Kala confide with the other slaves that were there before them that Atlantis will probably not pay for them as she has her own problems with the city being destroyed.

– One month goes by and Lena was being treated okay. The Greeks were honorable and while still slaves, let them live in their own huts without bonds. Those that try to escape are cruelly tortured then killed but if the slaves are good and do their work, they are left to their own devices. Since most of the slaves are women and children the Greeks are not worried about a revolt. While the Greeks did not force themselves on the women, they let it be known that a favor for a favor goes a long way. Many of the women did decide to ease their existence. Lena couldn’t blame them.

– That night Lena is awoken to explosions as Atlantean vailixi strike the Greek town. Afterwards Atlantean armored troops enter the village and fight the Greeks. Lena watches as the Greek Hero, one imbued with the power of the Gods, kills many of the armored Atlantean troops only to be eventually cut down due to aether spear blasts. The Atlanteans rescue all the slaves and take them back to New Atlantis.

Think it could be a movie or integrated into the When Atlantis Fell movies?

Today I will discuss some of the structures that are found on habitable planets in my Worm Hole Earth universe. These are structures of the Republic of Man, Solarian Empire and a brief discussion about those in the Union.

I hope you like it. Please comment.

After the war, the Republic of Man started to build cities underground. This was deemed necessary because of the radiation in the environment from the war and to protect it’s citizens and industry, since there were still other nations. Once the Republic was able to move most of their citizens underground the other nations either surrendered to the Republic or became even more xenophobic towards outsiders.

These cities were miles underground and were divided into large caverns over 10 miles wide and 200 feet high. They were created by the use of high powered lasers melting the rock and reforming it into a layered material they called Sodar. This Sodar was so strong it was used to line the caverns, build the internal structures and the large mega structures the Republic built on the surface.

While the caverns were large and open, the Republic knew they could not abandon the surface. The large mega structures were built to be recreational center. They stood up to 1 mile high with a 10 mile wide base that narrowed to half a mile at the top. With the use of Sodar, these structures became whimsical monuments to man’s ingenuity. Each city would try to outdo the last.

These structures were built with a further 2 mile wide belt around them that was enclosed in a 500 foot tall, 200 ft thick wall. Within the wall was parks, golf courses, lakes, pools, sports facilities and other amusements. Outside of the walls was left to nature to rebuild itself or in the future to grow unhindered by the hands of man.

The underground cities had many of these caverns. Each cavern was called a CENTER and many of these Centers were connected via central tubes. In the early days of the Republic, some Centers were used for Industry and Agriculture but as man learned the technologies necessary to live in space, these functions were moved to space infrastructure.

During the time of the Solarian Empire, massive space stations were used for food production while most industry was performed on non-inhabited planets/moons or stations. Habitable planets would never have industry or agriculture ever again. With the wormhole networks, food was grown throughout the known space and shipped to thousands of planets.

The Empire always built underground cities, believing in the protection it afforded its citizens and the desire to keep the surfaces of planets for recreation. Besides the open areas around the mega structures, man would occasionally build resort areas around specifically beautiful areas. Sometimes these areas of beauty were space based and resort space stations were made.

The Union eventually started to build cities under the skies of their planets. While the Empire developed nuSky, which were massive screens placed at the tops of the caverns and used to create a sky view. The cities on the surface had what mother nature gave as a view, nuSky cities could have whatever sky they wanted. Many times they would project what the surface above them looked like but other times they would provide other planet views or whimsical views. The creators of nuSky views became famous and highly sought after for their visions and skill in creating a realistic view.

One of the advantages of the Empire was that using Universal Standard Time, all underground cities throughout the Empire could be synced to the same time. If you wake up at 6am and travel to your office 1000 light years away, you still arrive around 9am for work. Cities on the surface do not have that advantage so some people in the Union would wake up in the middle of their night to get to work on another planet or system. Because of this annoying reality, around 2900 CE, the Union started to go back to a more planet and city type of lifestyle. Industry and agriculture were had in system or on the planet. Sometimes these would be done underground as well.

Regardless of which human polity, cities on planets were powered by geothermal systems. Man found that enclosed geothermal power systems were the best. Water loss was less than .001% per year and the power was clean. Vast geothermal sinks were dropped to near the crustal plate to where temperatures were over 800 degrees to heat the water.

There were two major Center plans. One plan would build concentric zoning rings. The outer wall of the caverns are housing units about 6 stories high, then a ring of schools and retail outlets. The next ring is entertainment and finally business centers near the central tube system. There would be small bus or tram lines every few degrees that would feed into hubs in the Entertainment Zone. In later years, these would have a ring that goes to the city’s Ring Hub. Additional lines would go between hubs in the Center’s Entertainment Zone or towards the central tube. A transportation component would be within a 20 minute walk from anywhere.

The second plan would zone the Center into a pie shape. Larger slices of the pie would be housing or business and smaller ones entertainment or retail. This design also tried to have the same type of transportation layout.

Even the Union’s surface settlements tried to stay true to the Center layouts since the same groups designed and built both. For one, it would allow citizens to move between locations and have a good idea of how the layout would be. The second main reason was the efficiency of the design. The hub and spoke design of the in Center transportation allowed for anybody to catch a bus, train, tram or ring in less than 20 minutes from almost anywhere in the urban area.

Other Center designs were built to handle special requirements. Some cities had dedicated Entertainment Centers (like amusement parks) or Special Resort Centers. While there were surface Entertainment and Resort locations, those were mostly dependent on mother nature. These underground Centers would be available year round as the environment was controlled. Large amusement parks were built, capable of being visited by anyone in the Federation. While some Resort Centers were built to replicate an ocean, natural or mythical land; others were massive zoos that had animals from around the galaxy. Instead of actually bringing the animals to these zoos, scientists and drones would follow these animals and then a 3D projection of the animal’s life and its environment was created for visitors. This immersion was better than that received from the MindNet because the sounds, smells and environment could be experienced.

While all heavy industry and most large business centers are off-world from a habitable planet, Many people telecommute to work with large numbers never leaving their Center or city. Depending on the the job, most can telecommute 2-3 times a week. Most of the business in a Center is related to servicing the home or telecommuter. Almost no one works in their homes, since with the MindNet, connectivity to the home is not really required. Home connections center around the Home Computer system.

This is not a computer like today but the House AI. Due to the restrictions on AI, these are stunted systems that are basically a system foundation with some basic behaviors. Additional behaviors are added to it as the person acquires services or systems. An example, when a person buys a new food preparation system they get a behavior model that is loaded into the House AI. This will tell the owner what can be done with the system. The House AI is connected to a central monitoring system that will check to make sure that the House AI has not be tampered with.

These house networks are connected to service providers and Center security networks. Long ago the war with hacker and AI made it necessary to separate networks that are gatewayed with human-AI hybrid systems watching the interactions. MindNet is used to interface with the House AI but in a limited scripted manner.

So the third timeline installment. To see all of them please go select the TAG timeline. I hope you like it. I will use this timeline and other things I put together to build my sci-fi universe. Please comment.

2319

Alpha Centauri Prime colony is established. The planet’s surface was found suitable for earth cohabitation but superstorms were extremely deadly with winds going over 200 miles an hour. The native plant and animal species have adapted ways to handle these storms. Man has to live underground with visits to the surface. Like their Earth counterparts, Man builds large superstructures on the surface and surrounds them with high walls. Inside the structures are plants and gardens of Earth while outside is the native varieties. Three population zones are inhabited with another two being built around three economic zones where all the consortiums and guilds set up shop. Elsewhere in the system, the mining guilds start mining the belts and the agro-consortiums set up space stations for food production.

2326

The Hyun-Sumi Shipbuilding Guild builds the first world encompassing industry in the Barnard’s Star system. There were three planets with two being medium gas giants like Neptune and one being an ice world outside of the habitable zone. The Hyundai Guild purchased a 500 year lease on the system, a first for a guild since mostly the consortiums take over systems. They built a large ship building facility encompassing half the planet (about the size of Mercury). Needing superconducting systems to build these ships, the planet’s temperature at -170F eased the requirements. Using large underground building docks with J-Rings to provide gravity the shipbuilders opened up shop. To reduce their costs, they lease out the systems mineral rights in the asteroid belt to the Rio Vale Mining Consortium. With PT Rings, the Guild built a transport hub in the planet’s only habitation Center to allow workers to commute from their home worlds to work on a daily basis.

2328

A mutiny on three frigates and the command station on Bernard’s star occurs. The local commander was a harsh disciplinarian and went too far when he instituted lashing a well liked junior officer on the Republic of Man Frigate Hammon. The fourth frigate remained loyal to the government but was driven off by the other three frigates into the outer reaches of Kuiper belt of the system. The mutiny also took over the unfinished industrial stations being built on the 5th planet (ice ball mercury size). the and the central hub. The mutineers blocked the PT ring and started to negotiate with Republican officials so the system was cut off. Luckily the Tri-free Industrial Consortium had already had delivered a few rings a year ago for quick access to their systems. Two were configured and taken over by the mutineers while one was in storage. The quick thinking of Chief Miner Tuni and his crew got the ring out of the storage facility and onto a runner to head towards the moon, Anvil, of the 5th planet, Miters Point. There was a small consortium research center there that was unmanned for the last year (after their mission of determining moon composition). The crew accessed the station and sent through messages. Knowing little of how a PT ring works and only that its distant end was probably in storage they kept trying to get attention of someone on the other side. After a week of trying, finally the PT Ring grew to the size of a personnel ring and Consortium security came through the ring. The Chief advised them of what was going on and the ring was turned over to the military. Initially the military sent through some marines to set up listening posts on the moon to find out where the mutineers were. Negotiations were going bad and it was decided to use the ring they have to take the system back. The marines took the ring into space near the dark side of the moon away from the planet when it was on the other side from the mutineers and made the ring into a space based ring. Thru the ring came Task Force Hammer, 2 dreadnoughts and 10 frigates. There were no ring weapons on these ships because of the ring thru ring limitation but the firepower was overwhelming. The mutineers quickly gave up and the system was restored to the Republic. After this incident, the military discovered the value of having other space based rings in or near the system with the extra rings for ring weapons. All systems would get one or two space rings in the outer system with enough rings for mounting on ships as they came through the rings. These forces would be independent of the system forces and their locations kept secret.

2389

The Republic of Man has habitats in 8 systems and has expanded its reach out 25 Light Years. There are another 20 systems that could support life on a planet but most of those are currently being researched. The Republic’s core law for space is to do not destroy life already on other planets.

2397

Mars is colonized as an Earth like planet with a breathable atmosphere. The gravity is a little light compared to Earth but it is determined that people can live there easily. Like Earth, Mars’ colonies will be underground with the surface left to be a nature reserve with only the cities’ mega structures as evidence that Man is there.

2409

Venus’s temperature has been brought down to the point where it can start terraforming.

2481

The Republic is out to 50+ light years and has 37 habitable systems. A crisis is occurring regarding how systems are represented. The numbers of representatives is starting to become unwieldy yet many wish for the current system to remain while others are wanting to see changes. Three major factions develop with two wanting changes but not the same. Over the last twenty years these factions have been solidifying their support base within systems with the occasional violence to supporters of other factions. In the Procylon system, an uprising occurs on Procylon III that takes over 5 of the 9 cities on the planet. They cut off PT ring travel and require the system Governor to call in the Army to retake the cities. One of the cities, Versparo, becomes a bloodbath as the Royalist party had many supporters in the city and they fought block by block with the Army. Further instigation was the desertion of a few of the army units to the Royalists and a few other units refusing to fire on the civilians. Eventually the uprising was put down but the separation between parties became even greater.

2483

The Republic civilian and military leadership realize the problems from the Procylon III uprising and institute measures to make sure military units are not all one party or from one system. A few senior line officers are sacked due to political declarations. This further disgruntles the remaining military and the political parties.

2484

Unbeknownst to the general Republic government, the Royalists have garnered massive support in 20 systems and launch a coup. Three of the 5 Interstellar bases of the Navy, 1 of the 3 Army interstellar bases and the Marines join the Royalists. Of the remaining loyal forces, a smaller portion in the newer systems in the Eta Leporis region decide that they would break off from the Republic. They shut off all PT Rings leading to any other system and have over 50 frigates and 2 dreadnoughts to their fleet. One of their systems, Eta Leporis, had a large military fortress station that could service ring weapons. They create the Union Eta Leporis and declare themselves out of the fight. The Royalists and Republicans fight many pitched battles in certain star systems.

2486

The last Republican stronghold of Tau Ceti is defeated and Emperor Rinar the Sure is coronated. Rinar was the candidate for the position based on all the remaining Royalists and the military leadership. As a gesture of goodwill, he offers peace to the Union Eta Leporis and accepts they are a separate entity.

2487

The peace treaty is ratified with divisions of how space will be divided, have been accepted by both parties. The Empire agrees not to continue their growth in the space going in the direction of the Union. The Union agrees to only grow in that direction. The division is accepted for 200 years at which time both may compete for territories in any direction. With the PT rings, contiguous space is not necessary. Trade is allowed with Luyten’s Star and L347-14, called Rinar’s Peace, being the two neutral zones. Both sides are allowed to have a space ring and small military station with a central rotational station as the trade zone. The Empire polices and manages the station and space for Rinar’s Peace and the Union does the same for Luyten’s Star. No activity outside of coming and going to the trade station or authorized transiting ships are allowed in the system. All other wormhole communications have been cut off except a communications on link betwen Sol and Eta Leporis for military and political communications only.

2491

Emperor Rinar decrees Universal Standard Time (UST). All Imperial cities and stations will use UST. Local time can also be used but work schedules and inter planetary communications/entertainment would be in UST. Since the majority of the population lives underground, they can not see what the surface is about. Standardizing the time frame allows for more economic activity. City and station nu-sky is timed to UST.

2537

Word arrives that the Union has met an alien civilization, in Cygni A system. The aliens, known as the WERZU to the Union, are a new to space travel race of humanoids with four arms, three eye stalks omnivores. They have only their home planet and small outposts on their 3 moons. They do not use radio communcations but have a form of telepathy to communicate. The Union explorer did not see them in their initial scans and when the science ships came in they were detected by the WERZU. Instead of leaving the system they met the aliens. Trade has been established and the WERZU were allowed to set up trade and an embassy with the Empire. Since social ties between the Union and Empire are good, the Union allowed the Empire to purchase some rings from them and to have a star in the Union as the Empire hub for access to the WERZU. So the Union built two ring pairs one from, Wagner, the Empire’s name for their new system, to the WERZU system and another pair between Wagner and the Empire.
It would take 30 more years before the connection was fully established but the Union allowed communications in the mean time.

Took a break from converting my Wall of Destruction story to a movie script. Did some work on the details of my Worm Hole Earth universe. The government is based upon an Oligarchy. There are major consortiums and then guilds that almost all citizens of the Republic of Man or Solarian Empire worked for. Here is what I have written about the mining consortiums.

Mining Consortiums: There are 4 consortiums responsible for all natural element acquisition. Whether it is water, Helium, Gold, Silver,etc… They are responsible for acquisition and refinement (smelters, clarifiers, etc..) for delivery to their customers. For example, they will produce Gold into ingots or Steel into bars for delivery or purify water or turn hydrogen into liquid or harvest anti-matter.

In the habitable systems, the territory is broken into zones around the system and they can bid for each zone. In non-habitable systems they can bid for the entire system. Then only the government presence is authorized without their permission. They get a 100 year lease on either the zones or 250 years for a system.

When Man first went to space, the mining consortiums set up factories in Earth orbit and sent small mining colonies to the asteroids to start mining them. Then around 2100 the Argotonian Mining Consortium built a station in the Asteroid Belt. The trips back and forth between mining concerns and the processing factory were shortened. Since the majority of a trip is from source to factory and not factory to customer, the economics proved overwhelming.

Within the next 20 years, all four consortiums had built their processing stations in the asteroid belt. The powering of these stations made them dangerous places with the Chibra Mining Consortium losing their station, in 2141. A minor asteroid rocketed into the side of the station and the nuclear reactor melted down. This caused 29,023 deaths and the further regulating of space stations for safety.

By 2300, the consortiums had become system owning concerns with each owning at least 4 star systems. These systems were mostly Red Dwarf stars that already burned through the majority of their fuel. They were surrounded by dead worlds and large Kuiper belts. The worlds were investigated for scientific reasons while the clouds were mined.

Normally, when a system is leased, a single Solar Station, Central Station and System Command Station are present. The controlling consortium would come in and build a processing facility, additional Solar Stations and a fleet of Scheffer class ships to mine the belts. The “Scheffer” class ships are massive ships over 5 miles long and 3 miles in diameter. They have large bays forward that allow the ship to “swallow” asteroids or comets, lock them in place and then start mining them. Only the rear 1/3 of the ship has artificial gravity. There is a large PT Ring that feeds the broken down materials to an orbital industrial station.

The ship drills stabilizing struts into the object, then robotic miners go out and break up the material. The robotic miners are controlled by drivers located in the front third of the ship. Large vacuum type systems suck all the lose material up and push it towards the PT Ring. These ships can scoop up 4-5 objects less than a mile wide and start tearing them apart. The crew gets changed out every 8 hours with another shift from the industrial station. No further mining on living planets is allowed. All future mineral gains will need to come from space based sources.

Science teams would canvas the planets and the further reaches of the system for geology of the system and general science of the system. Sometimes they would invite other consortiums or guilds to come to their system to build their own stations. These entities would pay a lease to the controlling consortium which would offset some of their lease to the government.

As with the rest of human space, no one normally lives on the mining stations or Scheffer ships. They commute to work via the ring network from the habitable planets. Most stations and ships have showering facilities but not really living quarters.